Hitched (Ride or Die Romances)

by Lauren Biel

“Because you smoke like you’ve done it before. And it’s fucking sexy.” I run my thumb along her lower lip. Her eyes roll back at my touch but

I’m not sure how Selena will feel about this. Actually, I do know. She’s going to hate it. But she’ll deal with it for me. Which I hate.

“Then enjoy what you won in our little game of hide and seek. You got to stay with me, just like you wanted.”

While this place is a downgrade for her, it’s an upgrade for me.

I’m not sure what’s on her mind, but it’s making her pissy.

“Why? Why the fuck wouldn’t I understand? I wasn’t born with a golden fucking spoon in my mouth, but I can still understand you.”

Her eyes widen. “Fuck you, Lex,”

“I . . . I just . . . I don’t want you to be so okay with me leaving. You keep asking me to leave. Telling me to leave. You’re pushing me away!”

“For once in my goddamn life I was being selfless and thinking about the wellbeing of someone else. I didn’t want you to leave. I needed you to leave because it was safer for you.”

“I’ve never felt guilt. I was born like this. Something not quite right in the head. But I knew if you got in trouble for all this, or killed, I would never get past that.”

“People describe love as not being able to be away from that person, that it’s such a horrible thing to be apart, but it didn’t feel like I loved you when I selfishly wanted to keep you for myself. I may not know what love feels like, but I knew enough to know that loving you meant letting you go.”

“Old me would have kept you, fucked you, and killed you when I was done with you. New me, the one you drew out, wanted you to forget me and live the life you deserved.”

“Even now, you want me to leave,” she whispers, her voice wavering with t...

“Because you look so fuckin...

“I’m unhappy because you make me fe...

“I’ve wanted you since the moment I saw you in that car. I’ve ne...

“If I wasn’t in this situation, bunny, I would never let you go or push you away.”

“I’m a killer, too, Lex.”

“This isn’t just your situation anymore. It’s ours. Stop thinking of me as the girl you dragged to hell and realize that maybe I’ve already been there.”

“If you want this, I’ll give you everything I can in this little world of ours.”

“You didn’t need to steal his can,” he says. “Well, too late now.”

“I think that dude lives there. He was watching porn in a room with a rickety bed.”

“Oh, hey, I grabbed this for you,” he says as he reaches into his back pocket and tosses a stick of deodorant at me.

My lips tremble. Lex cut the top layer off the cabin owner’s deodorant and has been using that. I politely refused. Now I have my own to use. My heart stumbles over itself at the small but significant gesture.

we must survive away from the world that will try to separate us.

Through the blur of rain on the windows, I can make out a man with his pale thumb held in the air. He has a limp, and it tears at heartstrings that should have been snipped when Lex carjacked me.

“There’s a guy back there,” I say, pointing behind me. “So what?” “We can’t leave him like that.”

“We sure can, rabbit. Have you learned nothing from this whole venture? We’ve finally gotten our shit together so we don’t have to keep running. I wo...

Lex clears his throat to stop my staring. I’m not staring because I’m attracted to him—and

and he is attractive—but I want to know more about this strange man from the side of the road. I want to know how his story differs from Lex’s . . . and how it’s the same.

Jamie grabs the shirt and removes the wet one. Selena’s eyes land on him again, watching his movements.

She’s not looking at him like she wants him. She’s looking at him as if she’s curious about him.

“Don’t even let her cross your mind. If you even think about her, I’ll kill you. Do we have an understanding?”

I’m not jealous. I’m possessive.

“Mind your eyes, little rabbit. I’d hate to see someone killed because you couldn’t,” I snarl. “Eyes on me, always.”

Will Lexington ask him to fuck her? Will Lex kill him for looking at what belongs to him?

“This is who I am, Selena. Unpredictable. Dangerous. If I was a fucking dog, they’d put me to sleep. The courts would have loved to give me that sentence, but I lived in a state that didn’t believe in capital punishment, even though I deserved that. I still deserve that.”

“But you can’t help being who you are just as much as I can’t help being who I am.

“I can’t create a life that is safe enough for you. It’s not possible. We can’t play house anymore, Selena. You have to leave.”

“If you’re not gone by the time I get back, you won’t like how I get rid of you.”

Because I listened to the pleas of a kind little rabbit.

Nothing about tonight should have surprised me. Lex is unpredictable. He’s always been unpredictable,

While I escaped the prison for my body, I couldn’t escape the prison in my mind. That’s a life sentence, and I’ll never have freedom from that, even as the most freeing thing lies beneath me. There’s no way to turn off who I am. Even for her.

“I’m fucking sick of how you treat me,” she snarls.

This is not how normal couples have this argument. But we aren’t normal.

“I’m sick of you telling me to leave! I’m tired of worrying about the next thing that happens that makes you push me away!”

“Really? You’re pointing my gun at me because I told you to leave? I was just giving you the freedom you deserve.”

“Do you even care about me?”

Do I? I’d kill anyone who hurt her, including myself. I’ve laid my heart out for her, even if it’s not in the way she expects.

“I’m sorry for what I did to that man. And to you. There’s a battle within me to try to be good for you. It’s a whole war inside me. I can’t win every battle to be the good guy you sleep with. I’m not even sure which one is the true me, but I’d like to think it’s the one who would never lay a hand on your pretty head. But I don’t know, and that’s why I push you away.”